~ IF YOU SHARE the peculiar assumptions of the utopian tax-funded neo-HRCS– that we are one racial slur from The Third Reich, and yet that we are on the cusp on a perfect age where nobody’s widdle feelings will ever get hurted again, ever– then a little bad PR because of Steyn or Levant or suchlike uppity Canucki rabbles won’t set you back.

And weary freespeechers may say “They got a stern warning about being naughty– enough freespeechery for now!” So we fold our hands and sleep.

Busy Little Bees

Lo and behold, the utopians– like Ontario apparatchik Barbara Hall– cannot rest: they save us from doom, and bring us to glory, right? So the Gay Brownshirts making their moves on the Ontario School system, together with the OHRC, with the full blessing of the Ontario government. See, opportunistic do-gooders never rest– especially when A Whole New World is at stake. Conservative folks tend to be content with the goods they enjoy– but too often fail to defend; progutopitards have schemes upon schemes for making it all better, where they control it, and us.

Let’s Be Clear

That most people are at least sympathetic with the modest aims of people who engage in same-sex behaviour to protect their civil rights, to prevent real discrimination, to protect their persons from violence– that’s pretty much basic humanity 101.

However, with the legal and procedural shenanigans surrounding the gay marriage debate in Canada, basic assumptions about human nature, right & wrong, and what the state can define or redefine were up for grabs. Is marriage a purely social arrangement? Political? Religious? Legal? Does it pre-date and hence have a different sort of basis & authority than the modern nation-state?

Verboten Thoughts

Activists like Svend Robinson wanted nothing less than (a) gay marriage, (b) no discussion of problems & consequences, (c) no possible re-opening of the debate or legal question forever, (d) the labelling of all possible opinions that differed as unCanadian, and illegal. Debate closed, forbidden, forever. His particular authority vanished when he stole that precious ring for his beloved (and got off the hook, of course), but the principle of no debate or you’re a meanie was established. No matter what science, psychology, biology, genetics, law or anybody else ever says, No Discussion Allowed. Really?

Combine that form of totalitarian thought with the utopian quasi-judicial marsupial courts powers of Barbara Hall, whose whole raison d’etre was to find ever more categories of speech & thought crime in her bailiwick, and it’s a match made in Gomorrah.

Rules For Fools

That there’s been no rush to marry makes clear this is about remaking and demaking, and not freeing the 2% gay masses yearning to be yoked– after all, the “Gay Community” is about as diverse as the rest of us, politically or personally, and not everybody in it is enamoured of Pride Extremism or political correctness or forcing marriage on the state as others are.

Pink swastikas are no better than the other kind. In fact, they’re kinda worse. ~

Brain Death @ A Canucki University

“I thought I’d catch you up on the bit that has happened in the meantime.

David Gauthier, the Vice-President, Academic & Research, at Saint Mary’s, has now spoken a couple times with executive of SMUSA, the students’ association, and on Tuesday 25 January he sent them a memo. This is what he sent to me:

“In that memo I have advised them that:

* Saint Mary’s University is committed to ensuring that all members of the University community are able to study and work in an environment of tolerance and mutual respect that is free from harassment and discrimination. * Saint Mary’s University aims in its policies, procedures and programs to be supportive of rigorous and respectful discourse within the context of legitimate areas of academic enquiry as defined by the academic community. * Although some expressions of free speech may be offensive to some, or create discomfort, offense or discomfort alone are not grounds to limit freedom of expression. * There are limits to freedom of expression and the law recognizes those limits by creating offenses where actions would incite hatred or violence or are harmful to individuals or groups, and, in such cases occurring on Saint Mary’s University Campus, the administration of Saint Mary’s University reserves the right to intervene and prohibit such behaviour.

In the context of any cases relating to member society’s of SMUSA where there may be concerns regarding freedom of expression, Saint Mary’s University Students’ Association is to consult with University administration. This is not intended to interfere with SMUSA’s application of its policies and regulations in regard to its member societies, but rather to ensure that the University’s responsibilities regarding rights to freedom of expression are met.

As one means to facilitate discussion regarding freedom of expression, my office along with the Saint Mary’s University Faculty Union and the Saint Mary’s University Student Association will co-host a colloquium to be developed for Fall 2011 focused on academic freedom and freedom of expression. Over the next month an organizing committee will be formed to plan the colloquium.”

I originally thought that this was an excerpt from that memo, but no, it’s the whole thing. The memo is remarkable for a number of things. 1) It nowhere expresses disapproval of Anderson’s actions. 2) The parts taken from an official Saint Mary’s document are more about limiting expression than protecting expression. 3) Anderson’s published justification for removing the sign is consistent with ideas expressed in this document. 4) None of the groups Gauthier means to bring together to organize a colloquium on academic freedom or freedom of expression on campus has distinguished itself as champions of these things.

The document to which David has drawn Mr Anderson’s attention does not have a noble history. It has at least twice been used by Saint Mary’s to justify its own infringements on the peaceful expression of opinion on campus. (I’m referring to Terry Murphy’s removing from a professor’s door the Jyllands-Posten cartoons and a lying press release the university issued after disruptive protesters forced a speaker off campus). Whoever drafted it didn’t much like the idea of robust campus culture.

I wonder what David intends to take from the colloquium on academic freedom and freedom of expression he has in mind for Fall 2011. I wonder whether he intends to base Saint Mary’s policies and his own direction on what happens at this colloquium. From what I understand of professors’ attitudes on this campus, I can’t help but think that the majority view will be that things here are hunky-dory or, worse, that we need to redouble our efforts to suppress hateful or harassing speech or discourse outside the context of legitimate areas of academic enquiry as defined by the academic community (I’m alluding to the words on the memo—they are pretty clearly at odds with true academic culture).

On Monday 31 January, I met with Mr Anderson and his vice president, Mike Mercer. They told me that David did not express disapproval of Anderson’s actions during their meeting. Moreover, they said that SMUSA has no intention of consulting with the administration should it decide again to interfere with expression on campus, and that SMUSA has sent a memo to David telling him that. They continue to maintain that Anderson acted within his powers and that he acted rightly.

Jeff Power, the president of the Saint Mary’s University Faculty Union, has told me that he’s very concerned about the incident and that he has met with Matt Anderson informally to communicate his concern to him, but that the union has decided not to say anything officially about the matter.

In the meantime, Adam Faber, the editor of The Journal, has continued to seek an interview with David Gauthier. So far he’s managed only to talk to Steve Proctor, one of Saint Mary’s publicists. Nonetheless, what Adam has heard is discouraging. From Adam’s email message to me earlier today:

“SMU’s official stance is “In this specific incident, we contend that it is an issue between SMUSA and its societies.” …When asked if censure was in order, SMU ‘neither agreed or disagreed’.

Proctor indicated that the university offered this memo not as an order, but as an offer to consult, or to be a resource….

It is unfortunate Dr. Gauthier continues to speak through Mr. Proctor.”

~ WE ALL REMEMBER THE BLOOD– the FBI rounding up actors & directors, the disappeared, the show-trials. Then MacCarthy and all the executions.. Oh, wait– that never happened.. here. The Westard elites– enamoured of Stalin in the 20th century– have never owed up to their aiding and abetting, their endless Nazi films, and ongoing sympathy with the Communist revolution against the West.

The only way to imagine how odd the situation is is to reverse the terms. Imagine a World War begun by Russia, with “Uncle Adolf” helping the West defeat the threat. Then we’d have no movies about Auschwitz, college kids wearing Goebbels and Himmler and Swastika shirts, Mein Kampf read on college campuses, endless anti-Soviet movies, and ‘edgy’ profs introducing Nazi analysis into their course syllabi. Pro-Nazi groups would defend Nazi incursions into Central America, Africa, SouthEast Asia, and elsewhere. The movie Fatherland gives you a bit of the idea.

Still, it’s been a long time coming that a big Hollywood director has made a feature-film about the Gulags. Now Peter Weir is filling the silence, with The Way Back: a big-budget movie with real movie-stars.

All Gone Bye-Bye

Welcome to the memory hole. While western media & punditry recently went ape over WikiLeaks, the Soviet archives sat open to anyone for years after the fall of the Berlin Wall: some dissidents even smuggled out piles of them that are apparently not of interest to our chattering classes. Like their ideological buddies in Germany, the Soviets lied in public, but kept detailed records.

In total, according to Anne Applebaum’s You Must Read It To Consider Yourself Informed book Gulag, between 1918 and the 1960s, 25-30 million people went through the gulag system.. yes, that’s larger than Canada’s entire population in the 1980s. Some of them still live there, even though the Soviet Union has gone– because they had nowhere else to go. Most people can name Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Mathausen. How about Kolyma, Solovki, Norilsk, and Vorkuta? Children’s camps, mother & baby camps, slave-labour camps?

So many questions– and in the West, so many dupes, sympathizers and America-haters who don’t want All That brought up again. Plus, the Russians are mighty touchy, too– but have never really owned up, confessed, and made reparations… and they’re still selling reactors & weapons to the bad guys.

~ What’s the full story on China? Cuba? Central America? Africa? Vietnam?

~ Whatever happened to Raoul Wallenberg? Why?

~ The Gulags. Don’t hold back.

~ Spill on all the spies. Algers Hiss, The Cambridge 5, and all those others– especially the ones we never caught. 1920-1989 should cover it.

~ The attempted assassination of Pope JPII. Details?

~ All the groups, causes & individuals you funded to subvert things over here, and world wide (including Mao). Inquiring minds wanna know.

~ The subversion of the churches– KBG vs. World Council of Churches & all that, plus what you did to Christians behind the Iron Curtain.

~ The full dossier on the Soviets & Islamic/ arab radicalism, please.

~ The American sub the U.S.S. Scorpion?

See, now, that’s just off the top of my head, and I’m no expert. The list could be miles long.

Insanity & Self-Hatred

Seems that the healthy self-critical mindset we inherit from the Greeks has gone suicidal for some in the West, who can ignore any and all Soviet atrocities over 70 years, but go ballistic over the most minor issue in the conduct of Western nations. This itself is a useful Soviet control-technique: self-criticism, to the point you doubt everything, believe nothing, and suspect everybody– except the Party, and the party-line. 2+2=5, as Orwell put it.

Solzhenitsyn’s magisterial trilogy The Gulag Archipelago– more often praised than read– is a Russian grasping with his entire mind & soul the arbitrary and nightmarish experience he endured, along with so many of his fellow-citizens. Fair trial, justice, law, logic– all went by the board. The yowlings of Western Leftists– some of whom were socialists or Communists or sympathizers– about their persecutions simply do not measure up, given what they were aiding and abetting willingly or naively or not.

We must be self-critical– but malignant Damn-The-Westism is itself pure Commie truththink: evidence be damned, we’re the bad guys.

Hush Hush Indeed

The silence in Hollywood, academia, and Leftist circles about the reality of world Communism– still torturing East Asia– is collaboration, willful blindness, and refusing to learn from the horrors of Leftist utopianism. Shilling for Soviet Imperialism was evil. That Obama & minions clothe themselves in real and symbolic Great Leader & Master Plan– or employ & listen to the Van Jones’ & SIEU & ACORN & American Communists & hard-socialists? Pure madness.

UnForgiven

Least of all, the Russians have never really digested or apologized or held a reckoning of their Worst Country Of The 20th Century thing. Putin & his minions are KGB and old communists, running a barely civilized modern-ish state. Unlike an essentially de-nazified post-war Germany, Russia has never expunged the evil from its soul, or apologized to the hundreds of millions at home and world-wide who suffered and died.

We owe it to the silenced, to each precious soul, each suffered moment, to the nameless, unremembered and graveless, we owe the truth, the remembering, the proper writing of a full history that accounts for our sins, their sins, and the full measure of the facts. ~

~ IT’S HARD TO COMPREHEND big events as they happen, let alone know what courses things will take because of what we do or don’t do. Egypt is a lynchpin country, and if she does an Iran, we will have a major regional power under the control of The Muslim Brotherhood. That’s next door to the global welfare case of the Paleostinian state, run by the terrorist group Hamas.. and that not far from Hezbollistan, formerly known as Lebanon– with Iran lurking over all.

Mubarak is your typical Middle Eastern strongman– choosing police and repression over Islamo-frenzy to rule his fractious country. He’s also been a stable ally and partner for peace with the West for 30 years. Westerners who insist “Try Democracy!” forget that most Egyptians would vote for some flavour of Islamo-frenzy. The previous occupants– the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Empire– were all about.. emperors.

With the idiot in the White House, and appeasers in the EU, Muslim Brotherhoodistan– if it emerges– will be a second Iran. That could begin a pan-Middle Eastern reign of terror with the other states either pandering or fearing the two radical bookends. How Turkey or other players will respond is in the air.

Gone are the days when we could look elsewhere as stuff happened in colonial backwaters, and come in and sort it out much later if it was our business. Egypt is on our doorstep in the new world order, and on Israel’s, and Europe’s.

The other problem right now is how much of the coverage is coming from Al Jazeera– the old media here may be biased, but they’re at least our idiots: the Al Jazeera network plays the usual trick of two very different scripts for the arabic & non-arabic audiences. We need more reliable Western news-experts with arabic under their belts– both the written/ spoken, plus the cultural/ religious/ historical nuances thereof.

One good result of this current unrest? The Muslim Brotherhood (or Ikhwan “Brothers”) has outed itself. Whether that’s because they are feeling ready to take on a visible role in things, or as a side-effect of world-media looking at Egypt, time will tell. But the source of the tentacles is out. Watch for the gutless to pander, the serious to target, and the radicals to praise the Ikweenies. Among their own, they’ve done what the ancient Christians did: fed, educated, healed, gathered, taught, and encouraged people. The problem is it’s not Christianity, but violent and aggressive sharia supremacism over the planet that they preach.

Let us pray that the Lord God blesses our troubled world, and the people of Egypt and their neighbours in this crucial moment– especially the Coptic Christians and other at-risk groups & minorities in Egypt. ~

The Toronto Sun’s Peter Worthington editorialized, “Our courts seem more understanding when bigshots do petty crimes for which a poor person would be punished. Bad publicity is deemed sufficient punishment,” he said. “Because a shoplifter or thief can afford to pay for what is pilfered, the act is considered a disease or affliction or aberration.”

“Svend Robinson’s agony of the moment looks a lot like showboating and shame at being caught – not for doing what he did,” Worthington continued, “His record of rudeness and callousness to those he disapproves of, is legendary. Odds are he’ll be back in Parliament, unless the voters of Burnaby-Douglas say enough is enough already.”

~ SILENCE ABOUT EVIL is a human way of avoiding things. That’s why when people opposed to the killing of unborn children primarily for reasons of convenience speak up, the ugliness breaks out. Just ask pro-life students at universities across Canada.

Or the mass-murder of unborn black children across the United States: an unspoken “solution” to the problem of unwed motherhood, and the dissolution of black families under the influence of the nanny-welfare state. If the KKK or neo-nazis were to say & do the same things as Planned Parenthood & the abortion mill industry, we’d understand clearly the evil we’re speaking of.. but if it’s in the cause of liberalism & keeping the darkies down, the truth goes unsaid, right?

Sadly enough, the bloody tide of silenced Canadian boys and girls– our neighbours– flows past us all.. paid for by our taxes, performed in our local hospitals, done by our doctors. Around the world, that tide– enabled by modern technology, pharmacy, and medicine– flows past in millions.

Number of abortions per year: Approximately 42 Million Number of abortions per day: Approximately 115,000

Where abortions occur: 83% of all abortions are obtained in developing countries and 17% occur in developed countries.

If there is a West to speak of in a century, future generations will look at our preventing, aborting, and neglecting of children and the hope and future as a strange symptom of our love for death, our despair, our placing of consequence-free convenience over human life– actual lives– itself.

That women then bear the further cost of killing or preventing babies– in breast cancer, depression, sterility, infertility, abiding memory, constant chemical pollution of their bodies, and all the related dangers– is a further verboten secret, allegedly of their “liberation” according to one species of feminist. That more than 1/2 of aborted children are female themselves is a further “irony”.

It’s tiresome to see all those Nazi movies where– eventually– the good guys triumph. After all, fascist totalitarianism is not about snappy uniforms and good advertising, but a set of very very bad ideas with a horrible and enduring life of their own. Actual Hitlerism may be dead (though the anti-semitism & Mein Kampf live on in the Middle East), but Adolf’s ideas of people-management, useless eaters, eugenics & surplus population, the all-powerful state and so on are much with us, except more politely.

As I asked once in a Remembrance Day sermon, did a generation really fight, suffer, and die so in the years following we could have 3-4 million Canadian babies killed in the womb, an expropriative nanny-state, a war on free speech and individual rights, and many other things which sound rather familiar to a student of World War 2? Crips, tards, feebs, veggies, unborned, you’re all expendable.

~ AS A NARCISSIST, Obama is all about himself & his interests & lotsa golf– which doesn’t include the rest of the world, much. He’s busy making a perfect America (according to his tiny world-view), so when some country somewhere implodes, explodes, or needs some American guidance, warning, or help, Obama is always asleep at the wheel. The White House, 2011: where it’s always 3am, and nobody is answering the phone.

After all, for Barack & his friends America Is The Real Problem. Worst Imperial Nation Ever. So when some actually worse place– say, like Egypt– actually gets worse, or hits some political/ religious crisis, Obama cannot understand it. Not to mention, his State Department and CIA aren’t apparently paying much attention to the world in defence of American interests.. say, like a stable if imperfect Egypt, as opposed to a radicalized or chaotic one.

The Center Ring

Election 2008 was all a carnival show– but America actually elected a nitwit with no depth of international, diplomatic, or military experience– surrounded by the same in his advisors. This is just the time when we need well-advised & experienced players who can fly by the seat of their pants in the midst of international chaos. Obama can golf by the seat of his pants.. Hilary can schmooze by the seat of her pant-suit.. but where is the real diplomacy backed up with a big stick, and the willingness to use both?

Remember? Israel is a neighbour to Egypt? Oh, but Glorious Leader’s grasp of history is a fail, too. And those Jews are really bad– everybody says so. Never worse than in a clot or mob, like a whole country of them.

Consequences Ensue

O. Ba. Ma. Not so much, and never moreso than when the world needs a helping hand, some stabilizing power, foresight & fore-planning, a little muscle-flexing to make sure things don’t get out of hand. The world is watching– but how can we expect anything else from the walking ingrown-eyeball that is the Obama cult? Over the past week, terror-cult Hamas saw the opportunities in Egypt, and jumped in fast with both feet– while America is only slowly reacting to, not leading world events. You can bet Iran is more on the diplomatic ball with this one than Barack’s DC.

The world is drifting, and more than ever needs a strong and democratic America to do the right thing. What they’ve got is an empty suit, still playing Who Wants To Be A President. ~

Funeral Sermon For Fr. Crouse

Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

We come to every funeral with guilt, sorrow and dread and we bring these with us today. We ought to welcome this and any instance of our mortality for only when we confront sin and death and the grave will we seek and find remission, life and resurrection. We proclaim and celebrate today that we believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting through Jesus Christ who died and was buried, rose again and ascended into heaven.

At many funerals we make the odd distinction between mourners and non mourners but I suspect that that false distinction applies least of all here today. So you, close friends, students and colleagues but above all else parishioners, I want to remind you that only those who mourn will be comforted. This day is an opportunity to gather and remember what is of first and last importance, that Christ died for our sins and to receive him in this holy sacrament. And in so doing it is an occasion to be recalled to what is of central importance and lasting meaning. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians,

‘He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.’

We hope for what we do not yet see and so we wait for that with patience. And that Christian hope is not mere wishful thinking; it is the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Paul tells us in a marvellous phrase that we are saved by hope. Saved by hope. Surely we know something of being condemned to despair, so can we understand, do we know what it means to be saved by hope. Is this what we need to proclaim to our day, our culture, our neighbours that we are saved by hope? The ground of our hope is of course our faith, for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. To Robert’s dear friends and especially to those who have been so remarkably loyal and caring, to the people of St. Mary’s and these Congregations and Parishes, I say, ‘be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.’

Jesus speaks to us today about our common hunger and thirst, that is about our deepest longings and lasting desires. And he assures us that he can and will quench our thirst and satisfy our hunger. The same promise is there in the lesson from Revelation, ‘I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.’

Our desires, however confused and however inappropriately we have sought to satisfy them, our curiosity and craving, the hunger and thirst of our minds and hearts, are not some cruel trick meant to leave us perpetually frustrated and dissatisfied, rather they find their end and fulfillment in God. God made us for himself. The universal spiritual hunger and thirst of human beings is a witness to this. And God further excites this longing in us in Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit. Jesus reassures us and promises us that our longings, like our faith and labour are not in vain. ‘Seek and ye shall find.’ And we who have the first fruits of the Spirit know how God has planted an even greater desire and longing and hope for the completion of his redemption in us.

Peter and the other Apostles summarize how Christians understand the common quest of human beings, what it is that we’re all looking for. In an astounding moment of recognition, perhaps at the moment not fully realizing what they were saying, they come to Jesus early in the morning, interrupt his prayers and say, ‘All men seek for thee.’ Everyone’s looking for you. And sometimes rightly, but mostly wrongly, we do. All men seek for thee.

It is God who planted in us the desire to know and to be known, to love and be loved, and who puts in our hearts and imaginations visions and dreams of peace and justice, of beauty and truth, of a new heaven and a new earth and the new Jerusalem.

In Psalm 27 this point is made so beautifully clear, “My heart hath talked with thee: ‘Seek ye my face’; ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek.’” Moses, remember, had prayed to see God’s glory but it proved impossible for him or any mortal. Yet God whispers in our hearts, ‘Seek ye my face’, and stirs up our longing to see him. The Christian Gospel is about the complete fulfillment of our hearts’ desires and all that we were made and long for.

St. John reports the wonder of the incarnation, what we could not see, we can now see, ‘we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.’ And this beholding is not just an outward seeing, it is an inward believing. It is those who see and believe who have everlasting life. ‘For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ And that glimpse of the glory of God in our hearts, which we know in the face of Jesus Christ , that inward believing will be perfected above, in heaven.

‘For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ The Christian hope is that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Our journey is the journey of the wise men; we know God now by faith and are led onward through this earthly life until we see the vision of his glory through Jesus Christ. At the end of John’s Revelation, after all the images of judgment and glory, the blood and smoke, the gold and crystal, he puts so succinctly what is the end of the servants of God, ‘And they shall see his face.’

We are invited here today to come and believe, to draw near with faith, and to receive this comfort food that strengthens our hearts and satisfies our souls, but the sacrament we receive with our outward mouths is meant for the mouth of our hearts, the outward sign is full of inward grace, faith our outward sense befriending makes the inward vision clear, and we feed on him in our hearts by faith and with thanksgiving. We see and believe.

Father Thorne, whose generous care of you over the past year and in this time has been exemplary, asked me on Tuesday if I might suggest a hymn for today. I gave him no answer because I couldn’t think of one, only hundreds. Father Crouse will be and has been remembered as an extraordinary priest and scholar and musician and he shared those gifts and vocations in and with these Parishes and this community but for many of us he was the very humble Church organist who accompanied the Happy Wanderers on the wheezy Cherry Hill organ, played for a full half an hour before every Evensong in Broad Cove, drowned out the furnace with the Yamaha in Petite Riviere, and at Nellie’s happy instigation ransomed and redeemed St. Mary’s organ, (just one of many instances of living out our Lord’s command, ‘Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost’). On this organ one Sunday morning at a Baptism he introduced me to the very ordinary hymn with the refrain, ‘loving him who first loved me’, and which concludes, ‘Singing, till thy face I see, Of his love who first loved me.’

Our peace and joy are found there and here and everywhere in the knowledge and love of God, in knowing him who first knew us, in loving him who first loved us, through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit.

So, ‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.’

And, ‘The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.’ Amen.

~ REST IN PEACE– The British born Barry is best known for arranging the James Bond theme and scored the music in a dozen of the Bond films. He also scored the music for films such as Born Free, The Lion in Winter, King Kong, Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves …. (spectator)

~ MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE– Dr. Jörg C. Gerlach developed the Skin Gun, which sprays stem cells and heals severely burned skin in just a few days. It seems like science-fiction, but it really works …. (neatorama)

GreenEcoClimatology

~ MORAL BUSYBODIES– “I think it’s hilarious that so many activists who would micromanage others’ lives in the name of protecting the environment would be aghast if told how to live their moral lives.” …. (fullcomment)

~ LIBERAL American Protestant Churches Placing the Koran in Pews Next to the Bible to Promote “Chrislam” …. (weaselzippers)

~ THE REAL ENEMY– “Cult of Multicult: Back in 1965, the Tory philosopher George Grant wrote Lament for a Nation, prophesying the eventual absorption of Canada into a technocratic, corporatized and American led continental super state” …. (shotgun)

~ THE TIRELESS Mark Shea has written a particularly brilliant post addressing the whole point of Christianity, and why one mustn’t allow one’s wrath, no matter how righteous, overtake one’s own sense of the gift of joy, in Christ …. (patheos.com)

~ TOWARDS A Hermeneutics Of Post-Structural Falafel Contingencies.. The cuts in arts, humanities and social science courses can be seen as a self-inflicted wound …. (transmontanus.blog)

~ WHAT WOULD her name have been? Would it have been Inga or Hilde? Could she have been named Mary or Emily? We will never know. Famous picture-taker Lennart Nilsson photographed both living and dead fetuses, but posed the latter as if they were still alive. LIFE magazine stated the baby on its cover was living. The editors were wrong …. (americanthinker)

~ YOU MAY NOT agree with the Ontario PCs, but give ‘em enough time and they’ll eventually agree with you. Provided you’re not an actual conservative. Or, perish the thought, a libertarian or classical liberal …. (godscopybook)

~ IN RESPONSE to yesterday’s acquittal of Lars Hedegaard on “hate speech” charges, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published the following editorial calling for the repeal of the law in question …. (gatesofvienna.blog)

~ IF YOU WATCH YOUTUBE, use Skype, download music on iTunes, download books from Amazon, stream video on Netflix, or use media in any way online – this will affect you. If you are not aware, the big Internet Service Providers in Canada are changing the way you will be billed. They are going to start charging you by how much you stream, instead of flat fee. So you’ll pay what you’re paying now for access, and then if you go over your ‘allottment’ you’ll pay more. Applications to the CRTC to change the billing rules are going ahead, sadly …. (openmedia.ca)

~ NAILED IT– “The affirmative actions battles, which grew particularly intense in the 1980s and 1990s, showed very clearly how the Left rejected individualism. Between sermons on equality and justice, the mask would slip and demonstrate the real motivation: racial vengeance” …. (godscopybook)

~ BETWEEN SMIRKS and Silence: Ignoring the Epidemic of Prison Rape …. (FT)

~ DRIFTING ALONG THE NIAGARA RIVER– “The point is not that same-sex marriage ineluctably leads to polygamy; rather, the point is that if there is no valid argument against the definition of marriage as being between two people of different genders, there can be no argument against marriage existing between more than two people.” …. (theinterim.com)

~ THE PHILLY BUTCHER– “The attempt by abortion zealots such as P.Z. Myers to distance themselves from this man and blame him on pro-life advocates (by weirdly trumpeting that he is not “afraid” to regard Gosnell’s victims as “meat”) is every bit as plausible as the attempt of a Christopher Hitchens to fob off the atheism of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot on the world as “religion”; All Mass Murderers Aren’t Created Equal …. (markshea, creativeminorityreport)

~ FULL CIRCLE: “The pagans of Rome cast the early Christians as bad citizens, a charge which reappears today in both the West and East: secularists in the Americas and Europe gradually move to marginalize a Christian presence in public life while Islamic extremists and totalitarian regimes use starker measures to purge Christians from society altogether” …. (insightscoop)

~ NEWS FROM TURTLE BAY– Testimony of Claudia Rosett at the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs during Congressional Briefing “The United Nations: Urgent Problems That Need Congressional Action” …. (eyeontheun.org)

~ FRANCES FOX PIVEN is a sociology professor who for four decades has advocated violent social upheaval as a means of effecting the radical change she believes in …. (americanthinker)

“What on earth were we thinking? Exactly why was it considered progressive in the 1980s to get rid of courses like Western civilization (courses that frequently included both progressives and conservatives on their reading lists)? And why did supporting a traditional liberal arts education automatically make one a conservative — especially if such an education included philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx?”

Obysmal

“Obama’s deer-in-the-headlights, finger-to-the-wind, “I can’t believe this is happening to me” initial reaction to the Mubarak implosion has eerie precedents. After the debacle in Vietnam, Watergate, the Nixon resignation, and the Ford WIN buttons, voters were willing to bet on the smiling but unknown hope-and-change reformer from Plains, Georgia.”

~ OBAMANIA around three years ago or politics as projection …. (sergesblog.blog)

“War, it seems, is a bipartisan venture, which is reflected by the fact that Democrats have a favorable view of Obama’s foreign policy, despite its remarkable similarity to George W. Bush’s foreign policy. And though there have been rumblings of antiwar sentiment from some on the Right, Republicans remain strongly in favor of an interventionist foreign policy.”

~ CLOAKED AGENDAS AND PURE EVIL– the socialist revival in the 21st century has four components: -Terrorism (especially the rise of Islmaofascist terrorism) and the use of violence to achieve political objectives; -Multiculturalism; -Politically Correct Thought and Rhetoric; And, last but not least: -Leftist Environmentalism …. (drsanity.blog)

~ VPOTUS JOE BIDEN’S assertion in an interview with Jim Lehrer that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is not a dictator has to rank amongst the daftest things that have crossed the threshold of his lips …. (spectator.org)

~ IS DEMOCRACY an auto-piloted ideal, or is America its primary engine? Abe Greenwald tackles the question in “America: The Left’s Dispensable Nation.” …. (commentarymag)

~ WHILST THE ECONOMY DIES & EGYPT BURNS, The Obama administration is worried about the problem, indeed veritable “crisis,” of adult children who do not visit their parents …. (spectator.org)

~ ED GOLDER REFLECTS on the implications of the historically-high levels of government spending, the deficit, and debt …. (acton.org)

~ OBAMA’S EGYPT STATEMENT FAILS TO IMPRESS. “The Obama team, after assuring us it didn’t much care about the outcome in Egypt, is now, in the vaguest possible terms, trying to say that it was instrumental all along” …. (instapundit)

King Alfred the Great

~ CANFREEP– What ‘Obama the Unready’ Could Learn From Alfred the Great …. (canadafreepress)

~ WIKILEAKS: Al-Qaeda on Verge of Carrying out a “Nuclear 9/11”.. Security briefings suggest that jihadi groups are also close to producing “workable and efficient” biological and chemical weapons that could kill thousands if unleashed in attacks on the West …. (blazingcatfur.blog)

~ AYAAN HIRSI ALI In The New York Times: Get Ready for the Muslim Brotherhood …. (vladtepesblog)

~ WRITES MARK SHEA: “One hopeful sign in Egypt: Some police took off their uniforms and joined the protesters. Meanwhile, some peaceful protesters shook hands with the police. May Our Lady of Zeitoun intercede and let this revolt end in justice and peace and not a worse tyranny.” …. (markshea.blog)

~ HOW CHINA CENSORS Egypt news, and why the story is so sensitive in China …. (boingboing)

~ CANFREEP– “Completely missed amid the agonizing cries of human misery in Egypt is that the ending of a United Nations fairytale is being written. The bum’s rush for President Hosni Mubarak has now gone global and from out of nowhere the Muslim Brotherhood-endorsed Mohamed El Bardei has arrived on the protest scene. El Baradei’s got the Nobel Peace Prize. All he’s really missing is the white horse” …. (canadafreepress)

~ MORE THAN 99% of voters in Sudan’s south chose to separate from the north in a plebiscite intended to end decades of civil war, a referendum official said on Sunday announcing preliminary results …. (anglican-mainstream)